January 4th, Genesis 12-15

So far, the Bible has established that humans are the worst. That’s a problem, because God loves humans, and wants to bless them and know them. Genesis 12 is the beginning of the story of God’s extremely long term plan to save humans from themselves. It’s a long story, but it’s a great story. Keep reading!

12:1-3; Abram takes a giant leap of faith here. He leaves his home, his community, and he doesn’t even know yet where he’s going- God doesn’t give him a specific destination, he just says “go to the land that I will show you.”

12:10-20; after showing so much faith, Abram here displays a shocking lack of faith when he assumes that God will not protect him and his wife.

13: 8-13 – Because Abram was Lot’s uncle, he should have received first choice of the land, but he humbly allowed Lot to choose first. Lot chose the better land, but landed himself in a town that disobeyed God.

14:19-24 – Abram wisely refuses riches from the king of Sodom so that he could not attribute his wealth and blessings to anyone or anything other than God.

15:1-5 – God makes a huge, impossible sounding promise to Abram. He was old and had no children so it seemed impossible that his offspring would be numerous.

15:6 – Abram’s faith in God’s ability to do the impossible was counted to him as righteousness. In Hebrews chapter 11 there is a list of various Bible characters whose faith was credited to them as righteousness. Our faith in Jesus is our only hope for righteousness.